in: Cristina; Cristina > 2009-06-28;
| # Posted 2009-06-29 20:19:14 | |
| Cristina: | Okay, I accidentally deleted the whole thread that had appeared on this. But, to answer the question about USOF and event controllers...
According to the rules, "yes". In practice, "no". I don't remember going to a meet that had a USOF event consultant, though perhaps years ago when I started going to A meets they did have them. I think the wording in the rules should perhaps be changed a bit (to make it a 'controller' rather than 'consultant', to sound more authoritative) and I would like to see it required rather than only given if requested. The rules say: " 39. Event Consultant 39.1 The USOF Sanctioning Committee appoints an Event Consultant if one is requested and is available. 39.2 The Event Consultant shall be appointed when the organizers request USOF sanctioning. 39.3 The Event Consultant is the official representative of USOF. 39.4 The Event Consultant should be an experienced competitor, course setter, consultant and organizer. 39.5 The Event Consultant shall be in close confidential contact with the organizers and cooperate with them. The Event Consultant and the meet director are mutually responsible for keeping in contact with each other. " So, the principle is already in place, I just need to drum up the manpower to make it happen. |
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| # Posted 2009-06-29 20:42:40 | |
| LKohn: | To fill in a little history...back in the day (probalby prior to your birth ;^) there was a very active course consulting committee. Unfortunately, as the people on the committee moved on (or burned out) to other things there was no suitable method for keeping the system running. I believe the rules were changed to make the EC and CC optional or "if requested" rather than required by the sanctioning committee. Perhaps there are some others who have a better/different memory of the situation than I.
There were attempts at establishing a training and certification system but that fizzled for lack of support. The Canadians developed a program that seemed to work but I haven't heard anything about how that is working now. We are dealing with some of the same issues that were prominent 20 years ago...it's a little frustrating but maybe in time we'll be able to come up with something that works. |
| # Posted 2009-06-29 22:46:41 | |
| jjcote: | I've never been an Event Consultant, but I've been a Course Consultant a number of times, most recently I think in 1985. Jan Urban is listed as being in charge of that committee these days, but I haven't heard anything recently — don't know whether it's inactive, or if I've just fallen off the list. |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 03:05:02 | |
| cmpbllv: | I hear you. Jon and I were commenting that since we left COC 5 years ago, there's been no new blood. A very few people are trying to accomplish a lot, but it's not like USMA where we had a few experienced people and 30+ folks who follow instructions well and can react to problems quickly. You'd think with all the combined experience in USOF we could stop reinventing the wheel and systemize some of this.
Something I floated a few months ago was the idea of a "Best Practices" website. A place to gather club SOPs / checklists / AAR comments etc (I'm putting this in military-ise since I know you'll get it and I don't have a lot of time, my apologies to other readers in advance). A list of resources for each possible job within the grand scheme of meet staff - obviously, some of it would be situation and club-specific, but even a list of questions that each person should consider in the planning phase would be helpful. You don't know what you don't know until it bites you in the rear, after all. I would think that a wiki would be a good platform for this, although it would require someone to administer it so it didn't grow out of control. But it could be unofficial (recommendations, not requirements) and have some sort of discussion page function as well for the inevitable debates that always seem to occur on AP but not out where everyone needs to see them. I'd volunteer to do that, but not until next fall...I think I'm going to be a bit busy this year! ;-) However, I don't deploy until Sep/Oct and a lot of that should be leave...I could help start something up if there was traction to do so, to include getting the USMA folks to post some of what we have on our internal website (which is a wiki of best practices and checklists etc...). Just a thought - might be less of a challenge to implement that than the event consultant, both from those resisting someone "treading on their turf" and finding people who don't get totally burned out. I also concur with your Course Consultant comment Sat morning...two sets of eyes are good, and three are even better (especially if the third isn't familiar with the terrain). Bummer on your ankle - I was horrified to see your name pop up in red (and quite impressed with your time Sat, nonetheless!). Do you have good rehab resources? |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 09:57:31 | |
| smittyo: | The event consultant is only by request and rarely requested. There have been a few instances where USOF required one for high profile championships when we had concerns about the event - the last one I remember was when NAOC was in Ohio.
A course consultant is supposed to be assigned to every meet, but the committee fell apart for a while after Elis Eberlein resigned while I struggled to find a new chair. Jan Urban stepped up a little less than a year ago, so meets should be getting course consultants now. I would much prefer some sort of certification process and controllers. The difficulties come in paying for people to travel to meet sites (does the club pay or does USOF pay?). While everyone agrees in the principle of higher quality meets, we don't want to discourage clubs from applying for sanctioning because of a too onerous quality control process or excessive controller expense, so we need to be sure to balance that. To play devil's advocate with Victoria's suggestions: Comments from experiences are great, but after a few people do this it quickly becomes too much information and sometimes contradictory - try looking at all the different ideas out there on how to run a Junior Training Camp. To really establish national quality control, it would require someone editing and standardizing content to avoid conflicts or things that aren't in line with the rules and to keep it short and readable. |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 20:11:07 | |
| ebuckley: | How about certifying meet directors. An "uncertified" person could still put on an A-meet, but they would be required to have an Event Consultant. After successfully putting on a meet (not sure how that would be defined - probably an OK from the Event Consultant and maybe an appraisal of participant feedback), that person would be cleared to run an A-meet without the consultant. I'd also think that if an event came off particularly badly, perhaps the RD's certification would be revoked or at least put on probation. This way, some quality control is introduced, without wasting energy on the clubs that have consistently put on high quality events. |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 22:14:39 | |
| cmpbllv: | Good idea with the certification - but again, the folks putting on the meet with COC were hardly new to O or running meets, and I find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't have been retroactively certified (sort of like we do with Level 1 coaches). It looked to me like the event staff had too much to do with too little help, and hadn't really sorted tasks into those that could be performed by others at the meet with some available time (along the lines of what the RMOC folks do for the 1000 Day) and those that had to be performed by meet staff.
I agree that there needs to be some sort of referee for content where best practices are concerned. Perhaps rather than discussion boards for each page, make it peer-reviewed - people submit write-ups of best practices (like JJ's results posting method) and they get posted if a couple of reviewers find them appropriate. Probably time-intensive to begin with, but once the basics were posted, not so busy. And I can't imagine that write-ups for individual topics would be all that long? Again, if there's general support for something like this, I wouldn't mind setting up a basic structure in a wiki and soliciting people to review content as long as I'm around (probably through end of Sep). Collaboration, properly structured, could bring forth some great ideas and make all of our lives easier. |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 22:54:14 | |
| drewi: | It looked to me like the event staff had too much to do with too little help
Really, this was the crux of the problem. I'm not sure if you read what Patrick Nuss had to say on his log or not, but there were essentially 3 people (4 if you count the official registrar, who wasn't at the event) who had to make the whole event happen, and they had very few volunteer assistants. I'm pretty sure that of the big 3 problems (the lack of maps on Friday, the delay on Saturday, the problem with controls on Sunday), only one of those (lack of maps) was something that could not have been prevented if the meet staff had had more volunteers. (Actually, the delay on Saturday could've been prevented with the manpower we had - I was cutting and bagging the control descriptions, and while I had the blue and red ones done when those map boxes went up to the start, I didn't make sure that the control descriptions had gotten into the boxes because I wasn't done with the other courses. I won't comment on the controls, but I'm pretty sure that would've been easy for the meet staff to prevent too.) |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 02:48:45 | |
| kupackman: | Jon and I were commenting that since we left COC 5 years ago, there's been no new blood [in COC].
Um... really? I just took a look at some attendance numbers. According to results from Cascade's website: 34 men participated in at least 4 of 6 events during the 2008-09 winter season. Let's call them 'regulars'. Of those 34 'regulars', 17 of them did not participate in any of 7 similar events in 2003-04. Another 34 men participated in 2-3 of 6 events during the 2008-09 winter season. Let's call them 'occasionals' Of those 34 'occasionals', 27 of them did not participate in any of 7 similar events in 2003-04. 10 women 'regulars' participated in at least 4 of 6 events during the 2008-09 winter season. Of those 10, 3 of them did not participate in any of 7 similar events in 2003-04. Another 24 women 'occasionals' participated in 2-3 of 6 events during the 2008-09 winter season. Of those 24, 21 of them did not participate in any of 7 similar events in 2003-04. In total, that's 102 participants this year with 2+ season events. And exactly 2/3 of them (68) didn't participate at all just 5 years ago. The problem isn't that there isn't any new blood (trust me, there's plenty). It's getting the new blood actively involved to volunteer and lead at our events. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 02:58:46 | |
| cmpbllv: | Sorry, let me clarify - it's the same people that are volunteering, which I see you've already identified as a challenge. I actually met some of the "new blood" while shadowing my cousin on Orange Sat afternoon.
It was fun to see the now-adult kids of the O families that we remember from 7 years ago helping out, plus Drew who we met out on the East Coast. Good run on Sunday, by the way! Which brings us back to the infamous discussion of how to grow the sport, but that's another debate, entirely. Jon and I spent some time brainstorming how to be helpful out here (since we now have 2 small children) and came to the conclusion that as Level 2 coaches, maybe we're most useful helping out with WIOL. Perhaps through building relationships with coaches / parents, we can help expand the volunteer base. While we can't really handle running a start / finish and juggling kids alone, we could help supervise someone new learning that role. Who knows. Anyway, count us in to help out, especially once we're back from deployment. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 03:19:03 | |
| j-man: | Regarding growing the sport--orienteering strikes me as one of the most complex things that is organized by volunteers. In other words, you need a lot of at least semi-skilled people to do it. It is not just a matter of numbers (which we need) but numbers seasoned over time until they are useful.
It is a Catch-22. DVOA has these discussions, too. Most recently about e-punching. Perhaps every club could benefit from people with unusual skills. The skill of recruiting people to participate. And the skill of commandeering volunteers to help. They may likely be different people. For instance, I am putting on a meet for WCOC, not because I volunteered, but because George Walker was tricky enough to make me do it. But, I am not sure how skilled he is at recruiting participants, as their club continues to be small. I continue to wish DVOA had active "coordinators"--a scheduling coordinator who would recruit the best people to put on an event and an epunch coordinator who would coordinate workers so that Sandy doesn't have to do it all. I don't know how easy it is to do that coordinating. I may not have those skills, but I know some do. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 03:33:54 | |
| walk: | Hmmm - "to make me do it"
Sorry. There was no forcing intended. We're happy to have you help...or not. Strictly pleased to have high quality events, with high quality participants. We're honored that you offered to help, but it is not a criteria for enjoying our terrain. All I did was ask. There are two possible perfectly acceptable answers. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 03:49:39 | |
| j-man: | I was being a little facetious when say "tricky enough to make me do it." Really, my point was that you asked. And I was eager to do it. It probably would not have occurred to me had you not asked. But, I think many people in our sport don't ask, or are hesitant to, or whatever--and then nobody does anything.
The point about unusual skills--I could never say no to you! So, it is a win-win. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 09:54:12 | |
| drewi: | Good run on Sunday, by the way!
Thanks! I don't think I would've done so well had I not known the times of my fellow M-20s... I knew I just had to go pretty slow, stay in contact with the map, and not screw up to win. Which I did. =) Here's my take on the volunteer shortage: I'm not sure it was advertised to the club that we needed volunteers. Going through my cascadeoc Yahoo group archives, I can only find one since April that asks people to volunteer. I believe one or two emails were sent out to the whole list of registered people as well, but I don't think those were effective. In my experience, sending a mass email out doesn't cut it; you actually have to ask people directly to end up with people who will volunteer for you, as was previously mentioned here. We ended up with 15 or so people for each day who were supposed to volunteer. I'm not sure how many of those ended up volunteering for their shifts. Certainly, we didn't have enough people at starts to do a 2 or 3 stage start every day. I also think that the category that would've been most useful, "person who does misc. errands for the meet director" was left off the list. Though I know Tracy and I both filled this position, it would've been helpful to have 2 or 3 other people, so things could've happened like having someone on the radio on Sunday to hear Eric asking us for help. ... This is kind of rambleish. I think I can boil it down to: 1. I'm not sure we had enough volunteers. Even if we wanted Eric and Mike to do all the course setting, we could've used 2+ more people each day to volunteer for starts, and 1-2 to run random errands for the meet director. 2. I'm not sure the recruiting practices were effective, but I have no data to back this up. 3. We might need to have more people willing to not run in order to put on quality meets. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 10:18:21 | |
| kupackman: | Gina and I discussed this at length today, and we came up with similar conclusions as Drew, which I'll post on my log at some point.
Basically, I don't necessarily blame it on a lack of volunteers, it's just the volunteers we had weren't delegated appropriately. We had Eric, Mike, and Sally all doing too much (either circumstantial or because they wanted to), and everyone else not doing enough (Drew & Tracy falling somewhere in between). Yeah, we coulda had more volunteers and they could have been recruited a lot more effectively, but there was a lot of capacity that went unused. I could ramble a bit more, but I think I'll save it for my log. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 11:38:56 | |
| drewi: | Patrick, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. |
| # Posted 2009-07-03 06:21:22 | |
| Rosstopher: | CSU struggled with the proper recruitment/allocation of volunteers at our A-meet. We came up with some similar conclusions.. more people needed to sacrifice their runs to ensure that things got covered. One great solution that we implemented was assigning a crew chief that was in charge of Starts ( for instance) and the crew chief was responsible for coordinating their set of volunteers ( setting shifts, delegating responsibilities and even practicing with dry runs).
It's also good to have someone do a sanity check to make sure that one person isn't overbooked. You can't vet all the course and be a registrar and be in charge of epunching. Not even if you forgo sleeping for the week leading up to the meet. |
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